this time. quick heads up in dundalk. we had that really long-term water main break. reopened in dundalk. as we look downtown at fayette and st. paul street, traffic is quiet at this hour. it is 5:00. you know, when you move to a new city, you expect all the services to be up to par, police, ambulance, fire and skew. >> one group in particular doesn't believe that's the case in charm city. we're talking about baltimore firefighters. union local 734 along with baltimore firefighters union 964. they're going to gather and rally this afternoon. >> here's the plan now, we have three city fire companies going to shut down starting january 1st. the firefighters who work there will be assigned to other stations. >> the closures are necessary because of the city's budget

crisis. the three companies slated to close are engine 14, truck 15, and then truck 16 in upton. >> some communities, listen to what they say about the decision. >> we have senior homes here, and a lot of elderly throughout the communities and i just, a lot of these houses are old. you get one going in a good draft and you lose them. that's a dumb move. >> departments have been cut to help with the overtime budget. rally at city hall will take place at 5:00 today. well it is a go: members of baltimore's police union voted

to accept the city's labor contract offer. the deal will cut 5 $5 million from the police budget. officers will no longer be forced to work 6-day weeks. instead 5-days. the deal goes into effect january 17th and runs through the 30th. at that point, police leaders and the city will have to negotiate all now contracts. firefighters across maryland are celebrating a milestone. the state's 100,000th volunteer firefighter. collin campbell earned his services last night after serving the rosedale and providence fire companies for the last three years. he's both an emt and firefighter majoring in criminal justice at towson university. fire may have stole their church, but it's not stealing

their spirit. >> we had about 20 senior citizens getting ready for a luncheon in parish hall when the fire started. all of them got out safely. dozens of donated presents for needy children were inside the building as it burned. luckily they weren't damaged. covered in soot and smoke. >> it would have been a tragedy if anybody was injured. it's a setback for the parish certainly. >> it's great to see the arch bishop go up there for that. the fire caused $3.5 million in damage. the cause is still under investigation. the pastor believes the fire began in the electrical box. all right, the city's

reached an outbreak of gun violence. baltimore's top cop asking for help. fred beofelt says his commission is doing all they can to help fight bad guys with guns, but they need help from you. he spoke with abc's brian kubler. so much of this work to get to this point where we're still suffering this kind of stuff, now's the time for us to say we put a good team on the field. we invested in all this. got a great stadium, but now we need to get the rest of you. >> the city will make another push this year in annapolis to pass stricter sentences for gun offenders. a rosedale man who ran over his girlfriend with her truck will spend the rest of his life in prison. a jury convicted jose cleros of

killing his girlfriend with her truck last january as she walked on a sidewalk near a home. prosecutors say carlos was angry after he found out that his girlfriend didn't want to live in his and planned to take the truck back. the clock is ticking in washington. this morning, doctors say cincinnati's wide receiver chris henry is fighting for his life after a domestic dispute in north carolina. first, let's check with our weather, here's justin. >> 5:05, generally clear skies. low temperature for the day. winds out of the west at 6 miles an hour. falling barometer. a winter storm on the way for the weekend. more coming up. let's go to the mta with mark jones. >> reporter: the commute start is a good one right now. nothing in your way, on time service on the camden, penn and

brunswick lines. light rail about 10 minutes late in the southbound direction. number 4 working with a diversion at middle river and pulaski. number 17 diverted at corporate and international construction. number 50 bus using belair road instead of manasota avenue due to construction. for the mta transit team, i'm mark jones. (announcer) let's say you have quintuplets,

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off to the races this morning. temperature down to 24 degrees. clear skies. lighter winds have allowed the temperatures to drop real fast in the last hour. we have a push out there. 19 is what it feels like in easton. 17 in baltimore. overall, we're all dealing with chill. mostly clear sky, but clouds try to race in this afternoon. we're in for our two-degree guaranteed high of 39 degrees. we'll talk about the weekend winter storm in a moment. 5:09 here's kim brown. traffic is moving nicely on the beltway. no problems to let you know

about. we have a disabled vehicle in the southbound lanes of 895. past moravia road exit. disabled vehicle blocking the right lane. traffic gets by to the left. dundalk, the water main has been cleaned up. jamie and megan, back to you. president talks economy, new poll numbers. >> reporter: the latest abc news poll gauges attitudes on the copy. i'm viviana hurtado in washington coming up. has tiger woods fallen off the face of the earth? his friends are talking and they have advice for their buddy. those weak little fly-aways... get smoothed to near perfection. how do i know? pantene gives you total hair satisfaction guarantee - or they'll switch you back to your old shampoo or conditioner... even if it's a salon brand.

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the latest now on the economy. unemployment still high across the board. most feel that's how one can really evaluate the strength of the economy. viviana hurtado reports from washington. >> reporter: registers may be humming during the busy holiday shopping season, but for many americans, economic recovery is still a mixed bag. >> can't afford it. won't have a job this year. so i'm you know, being careful about my spending. >> reporter: people worried about their personal finances have colored their views of the nation's economic outlook. in the new abc news washington

post poll, half surveyed thought the economy started to recover. some don't agree. only 13% said they thought the recession was over. 86% said it wasn't. gloomier than last month's reading of 82%. construction in november rebounded. the federal reserve kept a key interest rate flat. >> the zero interest rate can have an affect on the credit card rate you pay. it can have impacts on mortgages and other loans that have interest rates. >> reporter: millions are still without work. >> my number one priority over the next three years is to make sure we're not only growing the economy in the aggregate but people are getting hired, they're able to support their families and mortgages and send

their kids to college. >> the house passed a jobs bill that will be used to pay for infrastructure projects. the senate's not expected to take this measure until early next year. viviana hurtado abc news washington. it's quite possible we're not going to see a vote on the measure until president, it's not going to come close now. the president is pushing hard for approval. >> anybody who says they are concerned about the deficit, concerned about debt, concerned about loading up taxes on future generations, you have to be supportive of this health care bill. >> there has to be a line beyond which you think the bill's bad for the country.

the bill does more harm than good at this point. >> white house says howard dean's remarks aren't true. democrats are fighting among themselves, in an effort to get the 60 votes by christmas. >> 5:16. high temperature yesterday, 39 degrees. on target with what we expect. temperatures stay in the 30s and drop. and continue to drop into the weekend. the thing is, as we're timing out this coldest blast of the season, we'll also be timing out a storm in the south. 17th day of september, 45 in the afternoon. range from 5 in 1951. 68 in 1984. sun comes up today. goes down 4:46. clouds will be beginning to roll into the picture. teens on back towards our west. source of cold air will continue to ooze in. shift our focus to the south.

wide swath of clouds across the gulf coast. major flooding in new orleans, the day before they had over 5 inches, they have over 20 inches for the month. they'll get more. very active storm pattern out of houston and eastern texas. gu storm will roll off to the north. carolinas, northern georgia, we expect to have accumulating snow and ice into the weekend. here's our timeline, we'll pause it at 10:00 tomorrow morning. snow from atlanta, georgia northeast to the mountains. heavy rain across the gulf coast. snow into the carolinas and just on our doorstep saturday morning. storm goes off the coast and explodes. we could have ourselves an interesting accumulating set-up. first storm of the season. will hit most of us. partly to mostly cloudy overnight. mostly sunny today mofrment

clouds tonight at 24. as we check it out for the rest of the week, we're expecting snow to move in on saturday. accumulation, at least a few inches through sunday morning. kim? >> traffic is moving along nicely. so far, along 695, pulaski highway, no problems on the inner and outer loop. between 795 and root 40 interchange. if you're headed down, southbound on the harrisburg expressway, looking good between padonia road and the top side of the beltway. as we look at city cameras downtown, we're looking good at pratt and sharp shoot. it's very quiet. jamie and megan, back to you. difficult decisions i have to make as sheriff is to suspend a search operation and transform into a recovery. >> can you imagine making that

decision? >> heartbreaking one for the families of two hikers in oregon. they say search and retrieval efforts are impossible because of the elevations and conditions there. gullburger's body was found on sunday. it's 5:19. tiger woods has changed his cell phone number, hasn't even talked to some of his famous friends and during an interview with

robin mead nba great spike lee talked about his friend. >> i was kinda, i was shocked and the stories are coming in and i was just wondering, i hope that charles, that michael jordan, these guys get to him. >> you have his number, right? >> oh he changed his number. >> if michael can't get to him, then other people make him a bad mood. >> you need to talk to somebody else who is famous who have been through things in their life. i don't think you can talk about it to your family and friends. they are not famous. >> well, meantime, reactions kind of mixed to the news that tiger woods was selected as athlete of the decade. a result that reflects ten years on the golf course rather than the three weeks of he'll about his shocking sex scandal.

he's a tough kid who was dealt a tough hand since birth. we're going to introduce you to james and how he's taking his passion for sports to the mats. great story. we'll be right back.

trying to sort through the computer models and figure out what we're going to have this weekend. either way, we're going to get something. we're going to get accumulating snow. light, moderate or heavy.

today turned out to be a mostly sunny day. increasing clouds, 39. mid-20s overnight. turning mostly cloudy. looks like that storm system comes in earlier. i was thinking, saturday night, sunday, most of saturday, possibility of snow, at least a few inches. this storm could explode off the coast and turn into the one of the major ones we'd see. stay tuned for the possibility of heavy snow building in saturday. 5:24. let's go to new york for this morning's tech bytes. it today's tech bytes, the i-phone is ready to go to war. the military contractor raytheon announced an application for the battlefield. the app would send information to a central computer to keep troops up to date on whereabouts of friends and enemies. the app would also provide a realtime map, similar to gps or points of interest like known sniper hide-outs or positions.

how about walking and texting? that's about to get easier, thanks to the type and walk iphone application. you see what's in front of you on the screen while you type, that way you won't walk into a tree because you'll still look at it without looking up. ford is looking to steal a page out of apple's play book. upgrade the electronics in your vehicles similar to the way you can with iphone apps. the wall street journal reports ford is trying to get software developers to create programs for sync, entertainment, and communication systems. the apps would potentially be able to do things like allow friends to follow one another to a location using gps or give directions to every coffee shop along the highway. youtube is out with its list of top videos over the year.

the biggest hit is probably something you've certainly seen. that, of course, is susan boyle, the scottish woman who shocked the judges and the world on the show britain's got stalled. for information on all these stories, log onto the technology page of abcnews.com. those are your tech bytes, i'm vinita nair.

tonight, those who run the city will look out of their windows and see a parade of firefighters who are steaming mad. >> i didn't have time to move or snap my finger or nothing and

the cat just jumped on me. >> hear more about the man who stands more than 7 feet tall and his encounter with a bobcat. southwest could have a plane in the air at every second much the day. we'll tell you their plans and when it comes to bwi thurgood marshall airport. >> how are you feeling? >> i'm great, how are you? >> let's go get this thursday, shall we? >> 5:29. we're going to take you outside, temperatures are brrrrutaly cold and getting colder. bwi marshall down to 24. 22 in york, pennsylvania. that's what it feels like around here in the teens. 18 on the eastern shore. generally the satellite showing clear skies. clouds to the south. high thin clouds will begin